Gorillas & ChimpanzeesGarner, R. L. (Richard Lynch)
Science
Gorillas & Chimpanzees
Garner, R. L. (Richard Lynch)
Chimpanzees; Gabon -- Description and travel; Garner, R. L. (Richard Lynch), 1848-1920 -- Travel; Gorilla
When I first secured her she had the temper of a demon, and with the
smallest pretext she would assault me and try to bite me or tear my
clothes. In these attacks Aaron was always with me, and the loyal
little champion would fly at her in the greatest fury. He would strike
her over the head and back with his hands, bite her, and flog her till
she desisted. If she returned the blow he would grasp her hand and
bite it, or strike her in the face. He would continue to fight till she
submitted, when he would celebrate his victory by jumping up and down
in a most grotesque fashion, stamping his feet, slapping his hands on
the ground, and grinning like a mask. He seemed as conscious of what he
had done and as proud of it as any human could have been; but no matter
what she did to others, he was always on her side of the question. If
any one else annoyed her, he would always resent it with violence.
About the premises there were natives all the time passing to and fro,
and these two little captives were objects of special interest to them.
They would stand by the cage hour after hour and watch them. The ruling
impulse of nearly every native appears to be cruelty, and they cannot
resist the temptation to tease and torture anything that is not able
to retaliate. They were so persistent in poking my chimpanzees with
sticks, that I had to keep a boy on watch all the time to prevent it;
but the boy could not be trusted, so I had to watch him.
In the rear of the room that I occupied was a window through which
I watched the boy and the natives both from time to time, and when
anything went wrong I would call out from there to the boy. Aaron soon
observed this, and found that he could get my attention himself by
calling out when any one annoyed him, and he also knew that the boy
was put there as a protector. Whenever any of the natives came about
the cage he would call for me in his peculiar manner, which I well
understood and promptly responded to. The boy also knew what it meant,
and would rush to the rescue. If I were away from the house and the boy
was aware of the fact, he was apt to be tardy in coming to the relief
of the ape, and sometimes did not come at all, in which event the two
would crawl into their house and pull down the curtain so that they
could not be seen. Here they would remain until the natives would leave
or some one came to their aid. Neither of them ever resented anything
the natives did to them unless they could see me about, but whenever
I came in sight they would make battle with their tormentors, and if
liberated from the big cage, they would chase the last one of them out
of the yard.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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